1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a hand grenade having a fragmentation body and a detonator head from which a detonator tube with the detonator projects into the lower half of the interior of the fragmentation body, which is filled with explosive.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The fragmentation body of a hand grenade is usually a cast iron member of a plastics material member with embedded metal particles. As a result of detonation of the explosive charge which is disposed in the interior of the fragmentation body of the hand grenade, the fragmentation body is broken up and the fragments or the metal particles embedded in the fragmentation body are scattered. The breaking-up of the fragmentation body, or the energy which is imparted to the fragments or to metal particles embedded in plastics material, is not usually distributed uniformly over the fragmentation body. It would in fact be possible to achieve approximately uniform scatter of the fragments or metal particles, with a spherical fragmentation body, if detonation of the explosive charge begins at the middle of the sphere, that is to say, the middle of the sphere is at the same time the detonation firing point. In this case, the spherical wave front of the detonation wave originating from the detonation firing point would reach all points on the spherical inside surface of the fragmentation body simultaneously and would there convert its energy uniformly over the spherical surface of the fragmentation body, which results in the fragments or metal particles being scattered uniformly in all directions. In practice however, hand grenades are not of a spherical configuration in most cases, but are approximately egg-shaped as this shape is more manageable than the spherical shape, for a hand grenade of larger volume. In particular in such approximately egg-shaped hand grenades, the detonation firing point is not at the centre of the explosive-filled interior of the fragmentation body, but in most cases is in the lower half of the interior of the hand grenade, at a position remote from the detonator head, for it is in the lower half of the interior of the hand grenade that the detonator is located, in the detonator tube which is connected to the detonator head.
Initiation of the explosive charge is effected from the detonator. In such a hand grenade, the spherical wave front of the detonator wave whose centre (detonation firing point) is in the lower half of the interior of the hand grenade first reaches the lower regions of the fragmentation body so that the lower region of the fragmentation body is preferentially broken up, while fragments or metal particles are scattered at a lower energy level in the upper region of the fragmentation body, in particular the "neck region" or "shoulder region" around the detonator head.